Those who exploit and abuse animals do so for many sick reasons; keeping the status quo, laziness, vanity, and greed. Their money and ego is all that matters to them.
So, the inevitable consequence is that underground activists will employ economic sabotage as a relevant and viable "weapon."
The government goes ahead and implements unjust laws, the public is indifferent--or hoodwinked into believing that harming animals is a "necessary evil" for human progress--and law enforcement jackboots are the government's henchmen protecting vested financial interests that commodify and disenfranchise animals.
Therein lies the origin of the declaration by animal rights activists that "There is no justice--just us!" We are the only voice the animals have--and

ADL-LA makes sure it's a loud--albeit legal--one!

The

ALF on the other hand makes sure the animal abusers and killers are held accountable and punished for their terrorizing animals.
The ALF costs the animal terrorists money by inflicting property damage and liberating animals from their hell holes of abuse, torture and death.
To label activists "terrorists" or "violent" and ignore the real terror and atrocities perpetrated against animals is akin to vilifying those who dismantled the Nazi concentration camps but dismissing the iniquities of the Third Reich.

Humans have made technological "progress" over the course of their evolution--and it is now time to catch up morally.
As far as our treatment of the other species with whom we share this Earth, we are still ignorant, self centered troglodytes whose own selfish interests fuel our personal and collective pursuits.

We look at our fight for Animal Liberation as a wheel consisting of many different spokes. In order to make the wheel turn, multiple strategies must be engaged.
Activists make their own choices--draw their own lines in the sand. The players are a diversified lot.
Some lobby, while others write letters, send e-mails and faxes, and make phone calls to demand rights, respect, and compassion for our animal brothers and sisters.
There are those who go out and educate, leaflet, protest, march, demonstrate, and similarly agitate for Animal Liberation. And then...there are those noble soldiers who choose to do underground illegal actions--because they are outraged by the abuse, neglect, torture, and murder of helpless innocents.

Animals are maimed, choked, kicked, shocked, burned, beaten, starved, poisoned, skinned alive, driven crazy and otherwise tortured in laboratories, on fur and factory farms, and in shelters and circuses.
The activists who elect to 'up the ante' and circumvent leaflets and processions figure that if the victims were not animals--but rather white kindergartners from Kansas--there would be a revolution in the streets to stop the evil.
But, because they are "just animals"--as the compassionate, morally upstanding Steve Hymon so nobly and commendably phrases it--the powers-that-be just don't give a crap!!!
It's not the 'methods' of the underground that bother most people--it's the fact that its philosophy flies in the face of their cherished and entrenched speciesist prejudices sanctioning animal abuse and championing the malevolent deeds of the dominant paradigm.

But we are WINNING! Those of us who are animal rightists and Animal Liberationists are waxing TRIUMPHANT! We recall the effective and successful co-existence of above-ground and underground factions in other social justice endeavors, as well--such as those dealing with Apartheid, Civil Rights, the Vietnam war.
We recollect, too, that some of those prim and proper suffragettes in their corsets and long skirts were handcuffing themselves to gas lanterns in Chicago and letting off bombs in order to force the nation to concede the feminine right to vote.
The struggle for Animal Liberation is no different than the fight against Apartheid, the fight for civil rights or any other revolution to achieve rights for the oppressed, disenfranchised, exploited and in the case of animals, treated worse than any other species on the planet.

In closing, we advise you to read your history books and enlighten yourselves regarding other social justice movements domestically and abroad. None of them toppled long-reigning injustices by reliance on single-focus strategies--and certainly none were won by strictly peaceful means.
Even Mahatma Gandhi admitted that while his group was peaceful, there were others fighting against British control by illegal direct action.

For more information about the history of the underground Animal Liberation Movement, please go to